Banks to sell 10% of his Brightside shares

Brightside chief executive and co-founder Arron Banks is selling 10% of his shares in the company to invest in an insurer.

Both Banks and Brightside finance director Paul Chase-Gardner, also a co-founder, are making personal financial investments in an insurance company, which was not named, in a view to securing further capacity to support the expansion of Brightside's broking business. The insurer is backed by "major reinsurance capacy", Brightside said.

Separately, Banks is also using 9.95% of his Brightside holding (1.69% of the company's total issued share capital) as security for a personal loan. He will, however, retain his full beneficial and voting interest in the shares bring used for security.

The announcement was made as part of Brightside's trading update for the first six months of 2011. The company described its financial performance in the first half as "strong", pointing to an 18% growth in commercial insurance policy sales compared with the same period of 2010 and 9% growth in sales of personal lines, minibus and taxi cover.

The company added that the eCar and eBike policy books have been successfully integrated, with first-half 2011 policy sales increasing by 23% over the second half of 2010.